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Bathroom Occupied Transmitter Answered

Newbie here... greetings! I work in office building with about 20 guys, most heavy coffee drinkers... we have one-holer restroom which is located about 100 feet and around a corner from the area where the majority of the guys work. Needless to say 8 out of 10 times you make the journey to go to use the restroom, someone is in there with the door locked... leaving you constantly defeated and having to go badly..

I want to create a light or a signal viewable in our common room that would indicate when that bathroom is in use. There is one light switch in the bathroom which operates the overhead light and the fan... and the fan is extremely loud so we always turn the light off when exiting the bathroom. So my thought is to add some sort of transmitter to the switch that when turned on would send a signal to a receiver down the hall in the common room and that receiver would turn on a small light somewhere in the room. The guy next to me has a nice lava lamp and has volunteered it's services as the bathroom indicator.

I'm hoping to find a transmitter or replacement switch/transmitter combo that can be wired into the existing single switch box (no batteries to change). This is what I need help locating. It would need to perform it's current duties.. turning on the light and fan, as well as send the "on" signal and "off" signal to the receiver 100 feet away. I think the other solution would be to run a wire thru the ceiling from the switch, but was hoping to avoid that.

5 Replies

Is it a wall mounted rocker' type switch or a ceiling mounted pull switch?

If its the ceiling pull type why not piggy back an extra pull switch off that the 2nd switch is also operated by pulling the string? Not sure how you'd overcome the power/batteries things, but that covers off the need to simultaneously operate restroom light and occupied sign.

haha, good idea, i like it, but i'm afraid that nobody would use it, and there are other guys in the office closer to the restroom that wouldn't walk all the way back here to turn on the sign. That's why i thought some sort of trigger in the switch would be fool proof.. have to have the light on to pee, nobody leaves it on cause the fan is so noisy...

There isn't a lot of extra room inside those switch boxes. You won't be able to get the additional circuits needed to fit in there.

For this it would probably be best to use the KISS method and run a wire to another light. But you will want to get an electrician to do it so you don't violate any building codes.

Either way you will want a professional to install what ever it is you go with. Mains power isn't something you want to be messing with unless you know what your doing. Besides this is a work place and unless you own the company you shouldn't be making any changes without approval anyway.